November 4, 1986,
the Santa Cruz SENTINEL reports Corine Anne Christensen, 34, is
found dead of a point-blank inflicted .38 caliber gunshot wound
just beside her left nostril. This discovery occurs 36 hours
after James Marino and Richard Wayne Bandler (and no others)
were in her Live Oak residence, bitterly arguing and snorting a
lot of cocaine.

“Bandler and
Christensen were friends , not lovers. But Bandler often hired
her to have sex with his friends.”

unsigned

reply: I don't
include the sordid accusations that Bandler was a cocaine addict
and murderer because I am writing about neuro-linguistic
programming, not the character of those who invented it. Even
evil people can create good things. Wagner may have been an
anti-Semite, but he still wrote some fine music. For all I know,
Stalin played a mean fiddle.

If Bandler had
given all his earnings from NLP to charity, it wouldn't change
the value of NLP. It is what it is, no matter who created it.

__________

1 Nov 2008
I just read the article on NLP posted on the Skeptic's
Dictionary (http://skepdic.com/neurolin.html) And I agree with
what you wrote. I am taking a basic NLP course right now, which
will be ending in about 3 weeks or so. Basically, I took this
course out of curiosity. I always need to experience first hand
if something is what it claims to be or not, so that I can
further evaluate it or pass any judgment on it, based on my own
experience.

So far, what I
found out [about NLP] is this: While, here in my country
(Argentina), some people claim something like NLP can change
your life completely and without NLP you cannot succeed in life,
I found that this may be true for some people, but it's
definitely not the rule.

I personally
believe that no one (including myself) is the "owner" of the
"absolute universal truth." And my experience taking this course
has proved my beliefs to harbor some commonsense traits. For
instance, I found that this NLP course -in their booklets and
manuals for students- resorts to a number of fallacies which
make their own theory inconsistent and contradictory. On the
other hand, it did prove to be a useful technique or methodology
for some people, just because they strongly believe in it. But
it's been their own choice to believe in it. In my opinion, it
is the power of believing in whatever we want to believe in that
ultimately operates changes in us, not a given technique per se.

In this course,
the "teachers" also discussed and supported the idea that
Reality does not exist and the Truth does not exist. In all
honesty, I believe that to make such a generalization is a bit
simplistic. Who is the supreme intellectual authority to affirm
or confirm that reality and truth exist or do not exist? And one
of their own contradictions is that they see generalizations as
a mistake, yet they generalize a lot.

Once again, thanks
for the article.

Mariana

reply: I think
you've identified one of the main attractions to programs like
NLP. They provide some people with a sense of empowerment, with
a belief in themselves that is needed to motivate them.
Unfortunately, the feeling of empowerment is not the same as
being empowered. Nevertheless, even though this and other
self-help programs are hodgepodges of truisms, aphorisms,
commonsense, and nonsense, they do motivate some people to set
goals and work toward accomplishing them. How long the
motivation lasts is questionable since nobody in the self-help
business does any studies to find out if their methods are
effective for any specific purposes. Steve Salerno's
Sham: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless
(Three Rivers Press, 2006) attempts to deconstruct the nature of
the self-help industry and explain why it is more destructive
than constructive. "Self-help," he says, "is an enterprise
wherein people holding the thinnest of credentials diagnose in
basically normal people symptoms of inflated or invented
maladies, so that they may then implement remedies that have
never been shown to work."

18 Jan 2004
I noted a comment, by Armin Shmilovici, that "NLP contains many working
models (in the sense that they can be used to teach other people)". I
would first like to point out that this is NOT the meaning of "working",
and in fact DIFFERS from "working" in that context: Any "working" model,
is that which, when applied, is operative; teaching is NOT included (it
MAY be the action itself, but outside of something that specific, the
capacity to teach is not inherent to "working", and indeed many working
models cannot be shared with others, let alone "taught"). If, however, one
tried to describe this model in such a way as would enable others to learn
it, the model might be inadequately described; only those students with
the "intuition" to fill in the gaps the teacher left, by thinking in the
same way that teacher did (or close enough), that such students would
automatically assume what other students did NOT see. Such a description
would be useless for teaching "other people", generalized; the best one
could hope for is to repeat the same words despite lack of understanding,
and hope that a student in the future would find the old teacher's wording
intelligible. Insofar as "teaching" goes, this does not work: it COULD
work, based on the NLP principles Armin Shmilovici later expresses (that
things should change fast, and one must believe first), but since
quality-unspecified "other people" are unlikely to believe in these
principles of NLP (prior to knowing about them) enough to rapidly delude
themselves into confidence that they have understood what they cannot
translate, all before they understand the "lessons"; but this is a CLOSED
circle, not an OPEN circle, which means that instead of finding your way
into the circle and never out in an endless loop, one cannot find their
way in.

Not to lose track of what Armin Shmilovici was saying, none of this
contradicts what she said. But, it does show how she seems to have a
slightly off definition for terms she used. Did I use the plural form? I
must have forgotten some documentation:

"NLP relies *explicitly* on the placebo effect - if a person believes
that a personal change is possible, then he will obtain it more easily than
if he does not believe. So, the first step in a treatment, is usually to
change the person's belief - i.e. to prepare a specially made placebo for
him!"

Unless "specially made" means "altering the definition", this
"specially made placebo" is still a "placebo": presumably (and based on
"What makes NLP hard to validate in a scientific way is its recognition of
the difference between different people, which in essence means that
according to the person's behavior, he would be treated in a slightly
different approach.", earlier that paragraph), what is "special" about the
making of any particular placebo (via NLP) is that it has been tailored to
that person's beliefs, ensuring they will believe in it; since this is a
changing of the placebo "template" to match their beliefs, not the other way
around as Armin Shmilovici states ("So, the first step in a treatment, is
usually to change the person's belief"), she again shows some confusion over
the definitions for terms she uses.

I don't think you missed anything there. It simply doesn't make sense,
because it's self-contradictory, extracting a principle ("change") and then
pulling it away from where it belongs to place it in support of the
conclusions she wants to make.

PackCat

reply: I think what PackCat is trying to say is that if you are not
clear people won't understand you. If they don't understand you, they can't
test your claims. And, if you criticize them, they can always claim you
didn't understand them. This will be made clear by the next letter.

19 Jan 2004
Nice site, I am glad that so many occultists I know are even following
it's word so as not to be consumed by the chaff that exists in magic
related literature.

I am e-mailing to notify you of an article written that is quite out
of context. I apologize for any parts of my mail that appear bias, I do not
mean to be.

The article regarding Neuro-linguistic Programming is grossly out of
context and I fear for the people taking information from wherever it came
from. The parts referring to the presuppositions of NLP are where the error
lies. In NLP seminars it is intended (though I see you didn't get this
treatment) that the presuppositions be taught not as be all and end all's
but as beliefs that are more useful in many situations. In your article you
give rundown of 'what ifs' i.e. the space shuttle crash, the stabbing. NLP
is about restructuring belief so that they are more useful and
individualized to situations as many people restrict themselves by being
negative, the presuppositions are intended as 'try this instead and see how
things go' rather than 'this is true and it gets me out of stuff'.

Also... "But there is no common structure to non-verbal communication"
- this quote from the article is put across as though it is not a belief
shared by the NLP community, I assure you it is much more like the basis of
NLP, it should be corrected.

Hehe, I will not comment on Bandler as I think he is an asshole
anyway, but the field I believe deserves better words or at least for what
you have included to be put into proper context.

Thank you.

Gary Frewin

15 Nov 2000
I've talked to many people who dislike your site merely because it isn't
"right" on hypnosis and NLP. I think they want you to point out
how great hypnosis can be (I have seen it do some exciting things - if not
magical or mystical or unexplainable things - very easily and quickly).
I'm sure that anyone who tries hypnosis and maintains a skeptical,
scientific mindset about it from the start will know this - why should you
bother to mention it? The point of your article is that many "hypnotherapists"
believe in rubbish, and that hypnosis is nothing special or exciting in
itself. I have been using self-hypnosis for years, and have hypnotised
some friends and family - it is a rather boring thing. I am quite taken
aback by the amount and loudness of these people who wish to attribute
magical qualities to it.

And NLP. Poor, stupid NLP. I can't see how people could take offence
at this article. No - it does not mention how NLP can be useful, which it
can be, very mildly. But it hits the point home - hard - that NLP teaches
little, that it's basically new-age pseudo-scientific self-motivational
Anything-2-Everyone standard cretin fare.

Yes. I may be able to use NLP techniques to improve my
self-confidence. I may be able to use it to impress people socially more.
But then, the techniques are useful (and only a few of them), not NLP, not
Bandler, not the "practitioners" - the evidence that some
techniques are useful does not validate the seminars or the whole
"science" itself. In the end though, the techniques are more
interesting than useful.

A friend of mine recently asked about NLP. I hope my reply may be
useful to some other people.

I started really looking into NLP a while ago - and I started off
thinking it must be something REALLY COOL! But, unfortunately...

NLP IS totally bogus - it was s built by 2 men - one who has run
away from NLP as it is now, and one who says things like - "I think
the more you want to become more and more creative you have to not only
elicit other peoples' (plural) strategies and replicate them yourself, but
also modify others' strategies and have a strategy that creates new
creativity strategies based on as many wonderful states as you can design
for yourself."

Yes - it has useful, or interesting but impractical,
"tools", or "techniques". These were taken from
elsewhere - and claims were set up that NLP could :- a) Cure severe mental
illness b) Cure anything mental, in fact c) Make ANYONE successful d) Find
out when someone is lying 100% e) Influence people easily f) etc. etc.
etc.

If it's that good - why is it not used everywhere by everyone? Why
is the knowledge of NLP held by the boring, the unfamous, the unrich. Why
do NLP practitioners not change the world?

Do you know what I can do with "NLP"? I can "pace and
lead" - match your verbal "intensity" (swearwords, volume,
speed), body language etc. to build rapport, and then slow down my speech,
become more articulate etc. to "lead" you to a more calm state.
Does matching these things build rapport? About as much as listening to
someone and pretending to care.

I can look at someone's eyes, and depending were they move, I can
tell if they're having an internal dialogue, remembering a sound or sight,
creating a new sound or sight etc. It's not 100% and it's not that useful.

I can't tell if someone's lying by where their eyes move. However -
some NLP practitioners can.

Can I use it to become a social force to be reckoned with, using
clever tricks to subconsciously create a bond of friendship? No more than
being nice to people and listening and pretending to care.

Some NLP techniques may have a small place in social interactions,
in therapy, in self-motivation.

But as a stand-alone "discipline", there is little to it,
except the standard new-age lies.

This guy is a magician here in Milwaukee and along with many other
magicians, he has latched onto NLP as the be all and end all of magic
patter and scripting. Just adding to the long list of BS and bogus claims
that NLP has generated, I suppose.

Finally, thank you for the effort and maintenance you put into your
site. It has been a great help to me in many areas.Tim Catlett

reply: see the next letter.

15 May 2000
Hello, By way of a very brief introduction, I am a professional magician
in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and a member of a private magicians' Internet
forum (called the Electronic Grymoire, or EG for short, hosted by Bruce
Barnett). There are 700-800 serious magicians and magic hobbyists from
around the world on this forum, which produces email dialogue at least 5
days a week; pending holidays or days off by the moderator (who operates
it for a tiny yearly membership fee to offset expenses, from his home). I
should add that this forum is a very serious effort on the part of the
moderator (requires a "knowledge-based" magicians' questionnaire
for entrance) - as a response to the abominable 'free public' magicians
chat-lines (alt. magic. etc.) -- that are constantly being 'tainted' by
non-magician outsiders and general rabble-rousers. The founder of the EG
didn't think magicians should be 'talking shop' out there on a
public-accessible forum, under such dismal conditions.

I hope you've survived the above introduction. Now to my reason for
writing:

Recently a few magicians got into a spirited conversation on the EG
over the alleged marvelous attributes of Neuro-Linguistic Programming
(NLP). What brought the subject up and sustained it, was Kenton's book
(for magicians) called "Wonder Words", which taught NLP
"techniques of persuasion" in the performance of conjuring
shows. Several enthusiastic testimonials for both NLP techniques and said
book were then give over the course of a couple of weeks, by people who
purchased the book and applied its principles, and by people directly
involved with selling seminars [$$] and tapes on NLP. And a few magicians
had dished out the big bucks for courses on NLP (some of them medical
practitioners of one sort or another).

Prior to this discussion, I had never heard of NLP (I'm an extensive
'hard science' reader and in sympathy with Randi and the skeptic's cause).
The 'damn broke' for me, when a lady with a Ph.D. in linquistics and
psychology and 20 years in the field (by her admission), said that she'd
never heard of NLP either, and wanted to know more about it. As an
armchair skeptic myself, the very word "programming" (of the
brain) raised a warning flag in my mind. So...I decided to do a little
research of my own, starting (and ending) with the Internet.

I was immediately appalled by the number of web sites on NLP that
literally screamed "NEW AGE" and had all manner of paranormal,
metaphysical, hypnotic, and psychic-type links attached. Then I found a
page that had a long anti-religous dissertation, containing the theme of
how NLP was the revolution that would replace organized religion, blah
blah. I'm not in the least religious myself, but by now I had pretty-much
nailed NLP as a non-scientific piece of claptrap.

The above web sites then prompted me to examine what skepticism had
to say about NLP -- and that's when I discovered your essay.

Trying to be brief as possible here (it's hard, forgive me): I took
the liberty of downloading your NLP essay and, since it was copyright, I
didn't send it to the forum (a form of cyberspace 'publishing'), but
instead, re-formatted it for simple email (editing out NOTHING). I then
went on the EG and offered the essay (complete with your URL address at
the end so anyone could access the original), just by having them say to
me, "SEND IT." (I did this so that I could learn how many
magicians would actually be interested in getting and READING the essay;
just listing your web address alone on the EG would have told me
nothing.).

Some 84 out of 700 magicians asked for the essay over a one-week
period, and in a nutshell, this caused a small uproar of consternation
among the few more vocal NLP converts on the magicians forum. One of the
chaps most upset was an NLP lecturer with a set of tapes on neuo-linguistic
programming; and so his vested financial interest in NLP was considerable.
Others took me to task principally because the Wonder Words book worked
well for them, making them better magic entertainers. A strangely myopic
statement came from one requester of your essay: "I've tried the NLP
techniques and since they work well for ME, nothing will change my
mind!" - makes me almost wonder why they asked to see your essay in
the first place!

The final 'straw' in all of this, was that the NLP lecturer with the
tapes (filled with frustration over the skeptical point of view, I
suppose) referred to skeptics carte blanche, as those "EVANGELICAL
FUNDAMENTALIST SKEPTICS", and "fanatical zealots out to
destroy"...and so on. Rather than make an intelligent and reasoned
attempt to address the facts, all the fellow could do was engage in an
emotionalized character assassination of the skeptical cause....

IN SUMMARY: I am writing you simply to say that even in a field
where you'd think there'd be mostly (if not entirely) reasonably
intelligent, free-thinking, scientifically literate people (as exemplified
by James Randi, Martin Gardner , et al)...there are instead, a lot of
people as gullible, self-serving, and scientifically-illiterate as any
typical sampling of people among the general public.

By contrast, it seems to me, the skeptics' magazine/organizations
would have the general public thinking that magicians are, in the main,
pretty much aligned to the sensibilities and aims of skepticism. This is
something of a misconception. Curiously, though, in defense of my
profession, there WERE at least a half-dozen of the magicians (who asked
for, and read your article) fully in support of your position on NLP. They
KNEW it was bunk, from their own scientific training. But alas, though
they were professional psychologists and/or medical practitioners of one
sort or another, none would speak up on the forum. I became more-or-less a
'lone wolf' bellowing in the wilderness...

Thank you for reading this letter, and I especially thank you for
writing such a great article critiquing "neuro-linguistic
programming".Larry Thornton

14 May 2000
A few months ago, I bought a book called, "Instant Rapport",
which introduced me to the concept of NLP. What interested me in NLP was
how people typically view the world through three of their senses, how you
could tell which sense they often use through language and eye movements,
and how this improves communication with others. Then I decided to search
the 'Net for more info on NLP, and noticed that many sites talked about
seminars and programs, but didn't go into detail unless you attended for
some fee; also there were some claims of NLP that seemed too "New
Agey". This immediately sent up a red flag, so I went here to find
out more about the darker side of NLP. I'm glad I found out more about the
whole picture of NLP before going in too far. Now my opinion on NLP is
like my opinion on Myers-Briggs: sure, it
helps in understanding yourself and others, and communicating with other
people (especially when you bring up the method as a topic), but its more
grandiose claims are bunk.Wyatt Parkinson

15 Dec 1999
I studied English Language and literature at college. I then enrolled on a
correspondence course in neuroanatomy. I now work as a computer programmer
and am currently implementing a neural network. I can assert that NLP has
nothing to do with neuroanatomy, nothing to do with linguistics, and
nothing to do with programming. I also suffer from manic depression with
schizoid tendencies. The idea that NLP could treat schizophrenia is
absurd. We do not understand schizophrenia (for what it's worth my pet
theory is that it is not a mental disorder) but one of the effects is to
inhibit the patient's sense of perspective when making logical deductions.
"I am God. I know I am in a mental hospital. Therefore God must be
insane ... " is a typical chain of reasoning. What we do know is that
blockading dopamine receptors with specially designed drugs will inhibit
the symptoms. It is a psychiatric condition not a psychological one, and
it doesn't seem at all likely that a non-pharmacological therapy could
possibly work.

Keep up the good work.Malcolm Mclean

9 Dec 1999
I read your comments about NLP. There is much that you have written that
is 100% on. There is a lot that you have written that is off. Way off. We
tend to say that people all have different experiences. If that is so, and
I believe that it is, then how can you expect one thing to be the correct
thing for all. Everyone cannot say that their home address is 3285 Kinard
Ave in Pensacola as I can. I could not say that was my address 50 years
ago, 30 years ago, 10 years ago, and it might not be so in another 15
years. Fritz Pearls might have said that what you have written therefore
is a bunch of Elephant S... because it only comes from the brain. If I
want to say that I will get wet, which of the following will work? Stand
in the shower-not if my shower is not connected. Go out in the rain-not if
we are in the middle of a draught. Go to the beach-not if I am in the
middle of a desert. Go to a restaurant and pour the water they give me
over my head-not if I I am in the lost in a forest. Yet all of the above
answers could be correct. Which one is scientifically correct if you do
not know your location?

reply: If you are lost you should be asking a different question.

NLP understands that we are different, and therefore we have to do
different things to help people to meet their needs "where they
are." "The scientific theory" that you insist on says we
are all at the same place. NLP goes to where the person is and then helps
the person to get from there to where they want to go. NLP insists that
nothing is a crazy as continuing on doing the same thing over and over
again that has not worked before as most of the "proven
therapies," by your standard, insist on doing. If you need surgery do
you want a surgeon who says 90% have the part we operate at this spot, so
we will cut you there, or would you want them to be flexible enough to use
what will work for you, it is not scientific, but it is what you need. NLP
meets the needs of those who need help not the PSEUDO SCIENTISTIFIC
PHILOSOPHY that you insist on.PERRYFF@aol.com

reply: Sounds like it's working for you! Hey, if it gets your
elevator to the top floor, who am I to point out that I don't see the
building.

12 Sep 1999
Thank you very much for the enlightening articles on Landmark
Forum, LGAT, and NLP. I just met a woman
over the phone tonight via a singles ad who claimed to have had her life
turned around through an LEC experience. She continues to recruit for them
two years after the encounter, has moved back in with her 82 year old
father (I will now ask her if that was a result of her experience), and
essentially resembled the rest of the ideological physiognomy outlined in
your articles and links. Her vagueness about Landmark led me to seek
enlightenment on the Web, which led me to your site.

After reading up on NLP, it occurs to me that the Suzuki Method of
teaching violin and other musical instruments to masses of very young
children who are not necessarily prodigies is an example of this kind of
thinking. I understand now what it is about the Suzuki Method that
disturbed me during the four years that my son was taking lessons. It was
evident to me, at least, the Suzuki had a motivation to teach millions of
children to play tiny violins: his father left him a violin factory after
WWII and he needed to come up with some way to stimulate demand! The most
common brand of violin played by these students is a Nagoya, which comes
from Suzuki's factory.

Chomsky's theories of deep language structures in the brain are
evoked by some Suzuki theorists as the reasoning behind the urgings that
any child can learn the language of music as easily as a spoken and
written language. While there is probably something to the belief that all
children should be exposed to music in whatever form as early as possible,
it is also probably a cruel joke to imply to gullible parents that their
child possesses the talent to play the violin as well as the next kid. A
high degree of skeleto-muscular- optical coordination is required, as well
as the ability to discern small changes in pitch. In my experience -- I
studied the piano for ten years as a child and teenager -- not every child
can possess all these traits.

In addition, Suzuki enthuses that anything can be accomplished with
enough love, including teaching a child to play like Fritz Kreisler. When
my child wanted to stop playing or refused to practice -- he eventually
quit the violin -- I felt like a total failure as a loving parent.
Fortunately, he continues his musical training in other ways and has
announced his intention to retry a stringed instrument, in this case the
mandolin and the viola. But he really is talented musically, unlike other
very unhappy looking children I have seen in Suzuki workshops and group
lessons.

Thank you again for an enlightening website, which I shall refer to
often and recommend to my friends who are mislead by all sorts of New Age
nonsense from killer asteroid attacks to Wiccans. The article about LGAT
made some things clearer for me about the joint motivational projects we
are subjected to in the auto industry. And thanks for pointing me to Dave
Barry's article about Tony Roberts(TM). The business about motivating
large groups of people by spinning a prize wheel was totally on point from
my experience at the quarterly Individual Quality Partnership meetings
that the UAW and Daimler Chrysler Corporation subject us to. (I stopped
going after the second one!) I laughed until I cried! Robert Glassman
Ypsilanti, MI

7 Sep 1999
Mr Carroll do you know that a good many of the so called facts on NLP are
not true and if they decided to Bandler and Grinder could easily sue you
for slander.

reply: Be specific, please.

You might consider changing the page or withdrawing it. My guess is
that they do not know about your page.

reply: I'm always ready to change my mind.

First of all , Tony Robbins only got through practitioner training
and is not a therapist in any state.

reply: Good. I never wrote otherwise.

He also denies any allegiance with NLP.

reply: Good. I stated that he does not claim to be doing NLP
anymore.

Tsvi Kilstein who I know personally knows next to nothing about NLP.
He took a modeling course from David Gordon with me at an NLP center. He
must be part of that therapy mill that he refers to because. He is a Rabbi
who works on middle eastern negotiations. He is a college professor. As
far as I know he has no formal training in NLP.

reply: I assume you are referring to the quote from the Rabbi,
featured at the top of the entry on NLP: If medical schools turned out doctors the way
NLP mills turn out "therapists", people would die like flies.No other mention of the rabbi is made in the article, and since
the Internet site from which this quote was taken has vanished, I'm
removing the quote from the entry.

Richard Bandler and John Grinder founded NLP in an attempt to help
psychology students who were unable to model Fritz Perls effectively.
Bandler is a mathematician and John Grinder is a professor of Linguistics.
They went on to model dozens of other people with respect to the excellent
work they did . NLP is about modeling not therapy , therapists just
happened to be the first group they modeled. Oh by the way Tsvi Kilstein
showed up only for a couple of modeling sessions where David Gordon
introduced him and he gave a report on his negotiations which were
successful using the NLP modeling techniques.

reply: As I did not rely on Kilstein for anything more than a blurb,
I cannot say that this information is of much interest to me.

One Thing I can say that I do not know of a single NLP center that
has a program that says if you take one of their courses that you are a
therapist.

reply: And I can say that I never said otherwise.

Some have state certification for hypnosis; however, therapy and who
can be a therapist is controlled by the individual states in the United
States. You claim your page is about critical thinking. I for one can not
see any thing in your page that approaches thinking much less critical
thinking. Get your facts correct before you print something. Your NLP page
is a major fabrication of someone's imagination, not critical thinking

Tim Keating
Master Practitioner of NLPI am not a therapist, nor do I claim to be.

reply: I can truthfully say that makes me very happy. (p.s. I'll bet
you're not a lawyer, either.)

Rabbi Kilstein has seen this exchange. His comments are posted here.

Hi Bob. I am the infamous Rabbi Tsvi Kilstein
whose comment about NLP you pulled from the site. I have a few thoughts
on that.

1. I believe my original quote on that was
pulled from a discussion on alt.psychology.nlp.

2. I stand by that quote.

3. I was trained by Richard Bandler, John
Grinder, Robert Dilts, David Gordon, and many other stars of NLP. I
served as a co-trainer for NLP-International and led NLP trainings.

4. I am not a university professor but if there
are any openings please let me know.

5. I have never been involved in Middle East
negotiations but if there were any openings, again, I would be
interested.

6. NLP is divided into groups of trainers who
think that knowledge of a technique makes someone a therapist. Only
training as a therapist makes one a therapist.

7. I have watched your site grow and it is very
impressive. Keep up the good work.

I love being the recipient of ad hominem
arguments. I guess I must have really hit home with that NLP quote.

Rabbi Tsvi Kilstein

17 Mar 1999
You have helped me enormously with your great site. Although already a
critical thinker, the skeptic dictionary really left me astonished with its breadth of
articles, and I have become a regular visitor to your site.

At the moment, I'm taking a course in ADR (Alternate Dispute
Resolution) at a respectable college in Ontario. Last week, we had a guest speaker talking
about the use of NLP as a negotiation and mediation tool. Never having heard of NLP and
since the whole presentation left a rather bitter taste in my mouth, I decided to find out
whether you had any relevant information.

Needless to say, your article on NLP expressed all the misgivings I had. I
downloaded the article and will share it with the other students in my class. Hopefully,
the NLP article will persuade some of them to visit your site.

Thank you for a great site.

Gratefully yours,Louis Van Hout
Ontario, Canada

11 Dec 1997
I enjoyed the Skeptic's Dictionary very much. I'm putting together my own site on
doublespeak and propaganda, and I'd like to point to your site, if you don't mind.

Re: NLP. Back when NLP was just Bandler and Grinder (the latter, a legit linguist,
having since distanced himself from all things NLP), I believe it was just a combination
of mainstream therapeutic theories and practices recognizable to any practitioner.
Eclecticism was the rage then, and NLP was, I think, just a run-of-the-mill (if
pretentious and overstated) eclectic psychotherapy framework. It seemed to draw an awful
lot from rational-emotive therapy and other cognitive-behavioral techniques.

The basic idea was to induce changes in behavior by changing the client's language in
various ways, supposedly freeing him from restrictive or ritualized thought patterns and
therefore from inappropriate behaviors. This is an uncontroversial and even bland idea,
but I think Bandler deliberately obscured that fact with pseudoscientific and New Agey
gibberish designed to give NLP its own special, trademarkable, profitable mystique.

Later, NLP began pulling in ideas from all over the theoretical map, perhaps trying to
become all things to all people and only succeeding in becoming, as you've seen, anything
to anybody. Whatever-- for a time, Bandler and associates could charge top dollar for
seminars and workshops, which was the whole point.

Thanks again for a great website.Scott Burright

05 Jan 1998

I have taken the Persuation Engineering 3-day seminar in New York (I think in March,
1997). It was part of the NLP practitioners program (which I did not take), and it was
coached by Richard Bandler (one of the co-developers of NLP, and the developer of DHE) and
John LaVale.

The stiye of teaching included nested storytelling by Bandler (which is supposed to
convey messages to the unconscious mind), and more "formal" teaching by LaVale
with excercises.

The material focused on applying NLP skills to the sales environment. What I remember
was the strong focus on creating rapport with the customer, either by mirroring his
movements and his tone of voice and language, or creating it instantly, by going there
before him

I also remember the idea of well posed questions about what the client values, needs;
wants; should haves etc, and than replying with the information arranged in a specific
order from most important to least important, while repeating the words which the client
stressed. Also the idea of innoculating about buyers remourse in advance by repeating to
him the critics he might here from others, or asking him to commit to send other clients.

There is also a book called Persuasion Engineering by the same people, which I
bought and did not read yet, but it contains the content of the seminar.

All in all, I enjoyed the course, because of its almost "standup comedy"
style, but since I am not in the sales business, I cannot really testify about the
effectiveness of the sales methods, or compare it to other sales methods. I used the
"rapport building" methods in social environments, and they do seem to be mostly
effective.Armin Shmilovici

07 Jan 1998
I have attended both the DHE and the NPE seminars and I can honestly say that I enjoyed
just being in the environment with R.Bandler. He's brilliant. However if you are after
personal improvment then I would recommend Tony Robbins who originally learned NLP from
Bandler.

Have you read the books Unlimited Power by Tony Robbins or Frogs into Princes by Bandler & Grinder? Pål W. Jota

reply: No, but they come highly recommended.

11 Dec 1997I do not find your description [of NLP] as either fair, or informative in any way,
especially the irrelevant association with firewalking.

reply: Thank you for sharing. I mention firewalking because in one of his many
incarnations as a self-help guru, Tony Robbins (who used to promote firewalking) promoted
NLP. Robbins is still promoting self-improvement. From what I can tell from his
infomercials and interviews, he is teaching "communication skills".

"The map is not the territory" - one of the cornerstones of NLP,
basically says that the model of the world should not be confused with the real world.
Isn't that a philosophy any scientist would adapt?

reply: Not confusing the world and models of the world is not a philosophy, but
a bit of caution that anyone doing philosophy must heed. It is hardly profound and it
certainly is not a cornerstone of anything significant in philosophy.

NLP originated by trying to model the behavior of various peoples which are
successful in their fields, beginning with the language patterns of the
Hypnotist-Therapist Milton Erickson, and that is the source of the name.

reply: Is this the source of that writing correspondence course I took years
ago which advised me to copy out word for word War and Peace? By mimicking the
style of the great writers, I was promised I, too, could become a great writer. But don't
tell me that you believe that if someone learned to parrot the speech of Bill Gates that
person would become a billionaire?

There are many things to admire in Dr. Milton Erickson's life: determination,
self-will, confidence, hard work, seeing physical disabilities as challenges rather than
handicaps. But his language patterns are not where I would advise anyone to begin if they
wanted to model their life after Dr. Erickson's. But then I am not a believer in
hypnotherapy as a way to find deep truths hidden in the unconscious mind.

It originated in the middle seventies, and over the past 20 years, several of the
"models of human perception" were modified, or replaced. Like scientific
theories, they evolve. .Currently, NLP contains many working models (in the sense that
they can be used to teach other people) to perform various mystical things on your list,
like therapy, hypnosis, induced memories, psychic reading, etc. For each one of those
activities, the explanation given is quite reasonable regarding why it should work.

reply: I don't know of anyone who considers therapy, hypnosis, and induced
memories to be in the same class as psychic readings. What kind of modeling leads to
treating these items together?

What makes NLP hard to validate in a scientific way is its recognition of the
difference between different people, which in essence means that according to the person's
behavior, he would be treated in a slightly different approach. It can be judged by the
results, rather than by the theory. They claim very high success rates in helping people
lose weight, or stop smoking. Unfortunately, even those claims are hard to validate
scientifically (unless you can do it in a prison population). NLP relies *explicitly* on
the placebo effect - if a person believes that a personal change is possible, then he will
obtain it more easily than if he does not believe. So, the first step in a treatment, is
usually to change the person's belief - i.e. to prepare a specially made placebo for him!

reply: I must be missing something here.

The most comforting aspects about NLP practicians is the belief that things should
change fast - if a client did not get the change he was asking for within 1-3 sessions,
than he should be left alone. Over the course of the years, because of legal and marketing
considerations, many of the leading NLP practitioners decided to develop their private
copyright brand name, e.g. DHE [Design Human Engineering].

Armin Shmilovici

reply: I am sure our readers now have a much clearer understanding of NLP.
Thank you.